What will our community read in 2018? You’ll decide! Our reading panel has done its hard work, making their way through this year’s nominated books to choose two to present to the public for a vote. Starting April 9, you will be able to vote here at oneread.org, at any library branch or on the bookmobile. So sharpen your pencils and charge your devices, and thank you for your support of your community-wide reading program!

We hope you’ve enjoyed reading through some of the titles that have been suggested for One Read 2018. The reading panel will be meeting in a few short weeks to narrow down the list of over 140 titles that have been nominated. In the spring, the top two books will be announced, and you’ll get to vote for your One Read 2018 choice!

The last book we’re sharing with you is “The Secret Life: Three True Stories of the Digital Age” by Andrew O’Hagan. The nominator of this title does a great job summarizing: “This book is a series of three literary essays on the question of how the internet creates and complicates contemporary identity. In one essay, O’Hagan agrees to ghostwrite Julian Assange’s autobiography (with surprising results), in another, he creates a fictional online profile in order to navigate the ‘Dark Web,’ and in another he tries to solve the mystery of who founded Bitcoin. The book is philosophical and literary, but is also likely to appeal to a broad demographic.”

One of the last titles we’re highlighting is “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr. Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, this ambitious and beautiful novel weaves the stories of a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths finally collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

The reader writes “It was a captivating fictional story about a young blind girl (Marie-Laure) whose father built a model of buildings for their neighborhood for her to memorize by touching order for her to find her way. When she is 12, they flee their home as Nazis occupy Paris. Her path crosses with a German orphan whose talent wins him a place at a academy for Hitler Youth. Their paths cross as they try to survive the devastation of World War II in France.”

While science fiction books may not be everyone’s first thought for a One Read book, they can offer a new way of looking at our own world. “The Book of Joan” by Lidia Yuknavitch takes place in the near future, where the world has become a battleground. It’s a dystopian re-imagining of Joan of Arc. The nominator writes that this novel is “serious and well written — it would make for interesting discussions on an important topic.”